BY SOFO ARCHON
Sexual intercourse is one of the most beautiful experiences one can have. Through the communion of the sexual act, two persons can merge into each other and experience ecstatic moments of love. In those moments, the mind with its countless problems ceases to exist, time stops, and one’s consciousness is transported to a plane of bliss.
Why then, in our sex-obsessed culture, so many people seem to experience no such beautiful moments? Why the endless search for more sexual gratification and the resulting experience of emotional discontentment? To answer this question, we first need to see how the culture we live in affects the way people relate to one another.
With the means of advanced modern technology, it seems that we are more connected than ever before. The Internet has helped us create a global communication network where in a split of a second we can interact with others from nearly any part of our planet. And yet it seems that we are more thirsty for connection than any other time in human history.
No matter how many “friends” we have on social media, many of us feel lonely and alienated. That’s because online relationships are only skin-deep, unable to provide us with a true sense of intimacy and bonding. Text messages can’t substitute for in-person conversations, emoticons can’t substitute for body language expression, and cybersex can’t substitute for physical contact.
At the same time, due to the competition and conflict that prevails in the world, people have a hard time opening their hearts to others and forming intimate relationships, afraid that they might get hurt. Hence, a lot of them create tall, thick walls around their hearts to protect themselves from possible danger. And although those walls might prevent them from getting hurt by others, they also prevent them from loving others and being loved by them.
On top of that, we are living in a consumption-based economic system (which, by the way, is the main cause of the competition and conflict that exists in the world) where people feel constantly pressured to buy new products and services. This pressure is mainly caused by the advertising industry, which is trying to manipulate us into thinking that buying stuff is the solution to nearly all of our problems. For example, if you feel lonely and unloved, advertisements will try their best to make you believe that buying certain products and services will make you feel important and attractive to others. In fact, most advertisements exploit our inherent need for social connection and bonding.
That’s why you see sex is being sold to us nearly everywhere: in the movies we watch, in the magazines we read, in the clothes we wear. Day in, day out we are bombarded with countless sexual messages. Yet regardless of how many love stories and “sexy” products we consume, we still feel empty inside, because none of those things can provide us with what we truly long for: a genuine heart-to-heart connection. Even the sexual act itself is not enough to quench our thirst. The genitalia might rub against one another, but when there’s no friction between two people’s hearts, the spark of love can’t be ignited.
What we really need is to love and to be loved, and sex cannot substitute for that. Sex can only provide a glimpse of connection by helping bring two bodies together, but it does not have the power to bring together two hearts that are distanced from each other. Hence, no matter how much of it we have, it is never enough to satisfy us. Yet because of that glimpse of connection it provides, many people mistake sex for love, and, wanting to quench their thirst for intimacy through sex, they become fixated on it, not realizing that they’re trying to drink from an empty well.
Having said that, when two hearts are already united, sex takes a totally different form — it becomes an expression of love. Hence, it’s truly fulfilling. Of course, for love to exist sex is not necessary — love can stand on its own feet, without needing the crutches of sex. But sex can become a love play between two lovers, an orgasmic dance where they celebrate together, sharing the experience of ecstatic joy.